If I'm Gone
by Colorain
Summary: What if you couldn't remember someone you loved?
1. Beginning of the End of the Beginning

**If I'm Gone**

By Colorain

Disclaimer: I don't own _Mutant X_ or the characters. I also don't own the rights to songs sung by Hanson, and I don't really care if the words aren't perfect. This wasn't intended to be a standalone, but for the moment it's going to have to be until I do some research to fix the chapters that come after this. Archival? Just e-mail me and ask.

A bright flash of white light raced through their minds. When they opened their eyes, she was gone.

Not physically, of course; she was still lying on the table. But she no longer breathed and her heart no longer beat.

Adam was the first to recover, both from the blinding light and from the severity of the situation. The paternal doctor in him kicked in: _never stop trying to help_. He rapidly scanned the biomachines and checked the girl's pulse with his own fingers. It was funny, that he couldn't remember her name, but that wasn't important right now.

"She's dead." Adam told Mutant X, his voice choked with grief and tears. They stood silent, not quite sure how to react.

"Did we know her?" Shalimar asked finally. "I mean, she seems so familiar, on the tip of my brain . . ." She trailed off. The others knew what she was talking about.

"I'm not sure. It's very possible we did." Adam told her.

"Is there a reason we can't remember? Who she was, how she died—how she even got here?" Jesse asked his mentor.

Adam looked at the girl that no one could remember. He smoothed back her hair—a gesture he couldn't explain, but somehow knew had to happen.

"If she was a psionic," he mused, "then it's possible she performed a mental block."

Brennan spoke up. "They can do that?" he asked in surprise.

Adam steepled his fingers and furrowed his brow. "Well, technically it's only theoretical. I've never heard of it actually happening before—though most people probably wouldn't remember it happening to them." He took a deep breath, and continued. "We all know how psionics affect the mind, right? Well, what if one could . . . craft an illusion or . . . force an emotion so strong you didn't even remember her?" The group said nothing. Each was wracking their brain for a memory. Only snippets remained.

For Shalimar—breathing.

For Jesse—falling through his fingers.

For Brennan—running away.

And for Adam? A yin and a yang, equally beautiful, equally _her_.

~*~

__

If I'm gone when you wake up,

Please don't cry

And if I'm gone when you wake up,

It's not goodbye

Don't look back at this time as a time of heartbreak and distress

Remember me, remember me

Cause I'll be with you in your dreams


	2. Why Shouldn't I Worry

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If I'm Gone

By Colorain

Disclaimer: I don't own _Mutant X_ or the characters. I apologize for any inaccuracies in setting up the medical procedures of Sanctuary; I haven't seen the show in ages and this was written at a time when I _had_. And any medical conditions I've described here, if I am wrong in what I've written about anything, please tell me and I'll do my best to correct them. Thank you.

"Emma, behind you!" Emma barely heard Brennan's shout before she felt the impact of something very hard hitting her head. Oblivion took her.

Brennan lashed out with renewed vigor at Emma's attackers. GS agents, as usual. Did they even fight anybody else these days? Their unconscious bodies littered the ground behind him. 

And now, so did Emma's.

~*~

Adam's comm crackled to life. Brennan's voice came onto the speaker.

"Adam." His voice was tense. "It's Emma. She's been hurt. There was no new mutant. It was the GSA."

Adam closed his eyes for a brief moment. Though he knew the GSA would never give up in their quest to control new mutants, he still hated knowing that whenever his team came back from a fight, there were bound to be some cuts and bruises.

"How badly?" he asked Brennan. There was silence for a second before he spoke.

"I don't really know. I didn't think she got hit that hard, but she's not waking up. There's . . . there's blood though. Enough of it to make me worry."

Adam was already out of his seat. "All right, Brennan, bring her in. I'll set up the lab. Try to be careful with her head, okay? And hurry."

~*~

Shalimar paced Sanctuary back and forth, her heel incessantly clicking on the floor below. Adam had informed Jesse and Shalimar about Emma shortly after speaking with Brennan.

"What's taking him so long?" she asked impatiently. Neither Jesse, sitting on the Sanctuary steps, or Adam, leaning against the wall next to him, had an answer for the feral. They were all protective when it came to Emma, but Shalimar couldn't just sit and wait like the others. It simply wasn't in her nature.

The VTOL doors suddenly opened, and Brennan's voice floated out to them. "A little help here?"

Jesse vaulted off the steps and took off at a slow jog to the hangar. Shalimar started to follow him, but Adam's hand placed lightly on her shoulder stopped her dead in her tracks. A low growl started to build in her throat, but she let it die as she turned to face him. His eyes were kind.

"Jesse can handle it, Shalimar. I need you in the lab."

Shalimar could not help but turn her head to stare at the hangar door as she walked with Adam. They were taking their sweet time coming out.

~*~

Adam and Shalimar were busy recalibrating the instruments in the lab when Brennan and Jesse came in with Emma. They carried her between them: Brennan supporting her head and torso, and Jesse holding her legs. Normally only one would have carried her, but it was easier to lower her into the examination chair this way.

When she was set up, Adam interrogated Brennan further about her condition.

"One of the agents must've knocked her on the back of the head with a pipe or something. I was busy fighting the rest of them, otherwise I would have been paying more attention. I mean, I got a chance to warn her but she didn't react in time."

"And how long has she been like this?" Adam asked, carefully brushing Emma's hair back and examining the large lump that had formed there. He hissed as he gently felt the rapid swell.

Brennan was hesitant. "Twenty minutes? Half an hour at most."

Adam turned his head to look at the younger man. "And she hasn't shown any signs of waking up?"

Brennan shrugged. "None that I could tell." Adam nodded and addressed the group. "She's probably got a concussion, otherwise she'd be awake by now. But I'm still going to want to run a full body scan on her — see if there's any internal bleeding. That means," He looked at Jesse and Brennan. "You two can take a load off. But Shalimar, I'd like you to stay and help."

Shalimar glanced at the guys before looking back at Adam. "Sure thing."

~*~

"All right, Shalimar, I'm going to concentrate on the cranial area. I want you to monitor her vitals. Anything that looks abnormal, tell me immediately." Shalimar activated the scanner and read the rapid income of figures.

Adam took a handheld scanner and knelt by Emma's figure. He punched in the appropriate codes and ran it over the back of her head. While Emma's readings showed up on the handheld screen, they were also sent to the main database as an addendum to her health record.

"She's lucky," he announced to the feral. "Any harder and she probably would have had some serious internal bleeding. As it is, one concussion, one nasty bump on the head, and one hell of a headache when she wakes up."

Shalimar was still monitoring Emma's readings. Her brow furrowed. "Hey, Adam, come check this out." Adam stood from his crouch and walked over to Shalimar's side. He looked at where she was pointing. "I don't think I've ever seen Emma's white blood cell count at this level before."

Adam read the numbers in silence. He looked at Emma's other vitals and swore. Shalimar looked at him in confusion. "What's wrong?" she asked.

He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. "She's worse than I thought." When he stopped, the feral put her hand on his arm.

"What is it?"

"I'm not sure, but it looks like she might have leukemia."


	3. Monologues

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If I'm Gone

By Colorain

Disclaimer: I don't own _Mutant X_ or the characters. I apologize for any inaccuracies in setting up the medical procedures of Sanctuary; I haven't seen the show in ages and this was written at a time when I _had_. And any medical conditions I've described here, if I am wrong in what I've written about anything, please tell me and I'll do my best to correct them. Thank you. Set in Season One, when they only had one power each and decent hair/clothes . . . An AU, I suppose.

Shalimar left the lab in a mixture of confusion, anger, and a deep sadness. While Adam wasn't completely positive about Emma's condition, he had asked Shalimar to debrief the guys while he ran more tests. She had complied, with reluctance, of course. It was just a little difficult imagining Emma could be really sick and none of them had known. It made Shalimar think. Was there some great big flaw in the Mutant X team that they didn't even notice what was going on under their very noses?

Shalimar found Brennan and Jesse in the weight room, training. Jesse was holding a boxing pad. She felt sorry for him. Brennan was smashing at it with all his might. But he paused when Shalimar came in.

"Any news?" he asked, wiping the sweat off his face with a t-shirt. Shalimar smiled wryly.

"I was kinda hoping you wouldn't ask that." The guys exchanged puzzled looks before she continued. "Adam isn't positive on what's wrong with her. I was watching her vitals, and her white blood cell count seemed pretty abnormal." She paused. "He thinks it's leukemia."

~*~

Her head hurt; she knew that for certain. As Emma's eyes readjusted to use, she swore mentally. She was in Sanctuary. She couldn't remember getting there. She must have had a body scan when she was unconscious. Which meant . . .

Adam knew. She turned her head very carefully to look at him. He sat by her side, his arms hugging his head. He wasn't moving. Emma reached out a trembling hand and tried to brush away the lines etched so deeply in his forehead. He leaned into her touch. He was crying.

"I thought I asked you never to alter our minds without our consent, Emma." The tone was meant to be chiding, but they both knew that wasn't the main emotion occupying Adam's thoughts — and neither needed to be an empath to know what was.

Hurt. Intense, blinding, all-consuming hurt. And what pained Emma the most was that he wasn't angry with her, not even a little bit. He knew why she had done it. He understood. He just didn't want to believe it.

She could not even say she was sorry, because she wasn't. If given the opportunity again, she would not change a thing.

"If you had known, Adam, you would have tried to save me. Even if I asked you not to. I'm tired of being saved, Adam. It's time to let me fight my own battles. I'm not a baby anymore."

"But you _are_ a baby!" Adam roared. His next words were more subdued, his breath catching in his throat. "You're my _child_, Emma, even if it's not by blood. I care for your safety. I would be a monster if I didn't. I'd be like . . . Mason if I didn't." Emma was pained. She knew how much Adam despised the man Eckhart had become. He hated the cold, calculating shell of a man. But what he feared most of all was that he might one day be like him.

"You're not Mason." she told him quietly. "He's a sick, sick man that will never be cured. But you can't beat yourself up over that. He's not your fault. Not everything can be fixed, Adam. Not everything can be okay."

Adam looked Emma straight on. "I want you to _tell_ them, Emma." he said fiercely. "I want you to tell them how you lied to them."

~*~

They gathered by the reflecting pool. Assuming a basic yoga position, Emma centered herself before beginning to speak. She did not face the Mutant X team.

"I've known . . . " she began, "for four months. Four long, difficult months. I guess it started — well, after Caleb, really. I've always thought that the dead should stay dead. That those who came back needed to pay a price.

"Caleb's dependence on new mutant life force, his inability to form meaningful relationships — the realization that he was different, even from other new mutants. Those were his prices. And in paying them, look where they landed him. Death, again. But this time, there was no coming back.

"He was crazy; I don't doubt that. And I think he got that way because for him, death wasn't an issue. You become bored very quickly with life when there's never a 'last time'.

"But I'm getting off-track. He killed Pamela. He killed me. And I came back. And I couldn't help but wonder: why me? I realize it's because he hadn't had a chance to absorb my energy, but I found it incredibly hard to discover that I had been saved when others had not. I was no more worthy than the rest of them.

"Be quiet, Adam — I know you're desperate to tell me I'm a hero, and I was worthy, but I'm not going to believe you. I'm no hero. I'm just like all those other women, except for the fact that I work for Mutant X.

"I had been plagued by this self-doubt for a few weeks when I started to feel sick. At first I was a little scared. I didn't need anyone to confirm it; I had watched one of my uncles die from the disease when I was a child.

"I knew it was my price to pay. That's the thing — you can change how you pay it or how much you have to pay, but somebody's still got to. And I couldn't place my debt upon someone else's shoulders. That would have been cowardly of me.

"I didn't mean to do it the first few times, Adam — truth be told, I didn't know I _could_. I was just so scared that you'd find out. I kept hoping nothing would catch your attention. I just . . . projected this feeling of everything being normal. And when you looked over my results and declared me fine, I couldn't believe it. I could see problems in my body cropping up already, myself, but I didn't bring it up to you. I wasn't about to question it. It was a miracle. It was me.

"I lay awake that night in a state of constant fear. When things wore off, in your mind, what would happen? What if you looked back at the files and I wasn't there? So I tried something. I deliberately altered your mind. I wasn't sure it would work, but it did. I put a . . . a mental tag on you, if you will. Just something that would 'remind' you of what you had seen when I had been there to influence you. Me being there every time you pulled up my records would have been impractical and mentally draining. You would have found out, and I couldn't let you do that.

"I believe in fate, and me getting sick doesn't mean that I'm a bad person. It just means that I wasn't meant to be with Mutant X for the rest of my life. It's almost as if I had chosen to leave the team. I'd been harboring thoughts about doing so, actually, before someone discovered my 'little secret'. But I thought that you might try to come after me, when you have so many more important things to do . . ."

With this, Emma began to slump forward. Adam caught her before she fell and picked her up in one swoop, walking quickly back to the lab. The others started to follow him before Shalimar stopped. Brennan and Jesse turned back to her, questions in their eyes.

"What's up?" Jesse asked.

"I think that we should talk about it. Adam will take care of her."

The men shared a brief look before nodding their agreement. There wasn't anything that they could do for Emma, except wait.


End file.
